


Manure

by The_Cool_Aunt



Series: DISPATCH BOX [30]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Canon Compliant, Crossdressing, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 14:52:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cool_Aunt/pseuds/The_Cool_Aunt
Summary: “You are a great idiot. Left arm, please.” I continued scrubbing him.In which there is a load of horseshit.





	Manure

“Good Lord, Sherlock. You smell like you’ve been rolling around in manure. What have you been doing?”   
  
“Rolling around in manure. Is there tea?”   
  
“No, there is not tea—not for you. You are to remove all of that muck and get into the bath immediately.” I pointed sternly down the hallway towards the bath-room.   
  
He sighed and trudged down the hallway, his boots making odd squelching noises. When he was clean I would insist that he scrub the floor as well. He slammed the door of the bath-room shut and I heard the taps go on.   
  
Ridiculous man.   
  
I followed him. When I opened the door, he did not pause in stripping off his befouled clothes or look at me. He did, however, make a rather angry growl.   
  
“Don’t be so childish,” I instructed, trying not to laugh. “You are positively foul. Why were you rolling around in manure anyway? Do I really want to know?”   
  
He huffed impatiently as I tested the water and adjusted the taps, then continued stripping, carelessly dropping his shirt onto the pile on the floor. I looked pointedly at his combinations.   
  
“How did you get _those_ dirty?” I demanded. “Did it soak through your trousers?”   
  
“Clearly,” he huffed. He almost ripped the mucky garment off.   
  
“My poor sweetheart,” I remarked, finally offering him the sympathy he clearly desired. “You must be cold.”   
  
“Not at all. Everything was quite warm.”   
  
Oh dear.   
  
He was really being quite fussy, despite my attempt to pacify him. I offered him my hand to assist him into the tub, but he waved it away impatiently.   
  
“Why are you in such a mood?” I demanded.   
  
“I have been rolling around in warm manure,” he pointed out, impatiently snatching the flannel I offered from my hand. “I ruined my gloves.”   
  
“The new ones?” No wonder he was in a mood. They had been very nice gloves, of dove grey. He was so fussy about his costume and had been particularly pleased with them. “I am sorry to hear that.”   
  
“I should have thought to remove them first,” he admitted, accepting the bar of Pears’ soap that I offered.   
  
I seated myself on the closed lid of the toilet. “What happened?” I inquired. “You rushed out this morning without a word.”   
  
“Not without _a_ word,” he prodded.   
  
“No… someone telephoned,” I recalled.   
  
“And…” he encouraged.   
  
“You said something about a ring and then you dashed off. Were you looking for a _ring_ in that muck?”   
  
“Obviously,” he replied tersely.   
  
“Why were you… let us start at the beginning. Let me.” I moved to perch myself on the edge of the bathtub and put out my hand for the flannel and soap, which he handed over with a sigh. I rubbed them briskly together, creating a lovely-smelling lather, and then began at the top.   
  
“Did you ruin your hat as well?” I asked as I gently ran the sudsy cloth over the dark curls.   
  
“I thought to remove that before I began my endeavours,” he said with dignity, then grimaced as the lather ran down his face and some apparently went into his mouth.   
  
“Shut your eyes,” I instructed. He did so, pre-emptively closing his mouth tightly as well. I fished the sponge out of the warm water and, holding it over his head, wrung it out vigorously to rinse his hair and face. I wiped his face delicately until I was certain that no soap remained. I then took up the lathered cloth again and began on the back of his neck and his shoulders. “So… I want to hear the whole story,” I urged. “It began with that call.”   
  
As I continued to bathe him, he began to relate his eventful day.   
  
“As you noted, someone rang after breakfast. It was a Mr. Samuel Bramsen. He was in quite a state about a lost ring.”   
  
“That seems a rather mundane thing,” I commented. “What enticed you to take the case?”   
  
“Mr. Bramsen explained that it was a woman’s ring and that he had lost it in a rather compromising situation. He would not explain more until I came to meet him, and he begged that I come to him alone, as he did not think that he would be able to fully express himself in front of more than one man.”   
  
“That certainly does sound intriguing,” I agreed. “So that is why you left me behind?”   
  
“He was quite distraught, and I had no desire to upset him further.”   
  
I nodded my understanding as I began to gently cleanse his thin chest.   
  
“As you noted, I set out immediately. Mr. Bramsen had requested that I meet him in a rather clandestine spot.”   
  
“My love!” I exclaimed. “That was quite foolhardy of you. What if he turned out to be a maniac? You could have been attacked and I would not have had the slightest idea where you were.” I stopped my ablutions and looked at him quite sternly.   
  
“I did not consider that,” he admitted.   
  
“You are a great idiot. Left arm, please.” I continued scrubbing him, perhaps a bit more firmly than was entirely necessary. I took a good look at his hand. “Wait one moment.” I dashed out of the bath-room and into his bedroom to retrieve his nail-brush, waving it triumphantly when I returned. “Go on,” I prodded as I began to clean the fingernails of his left hand.   
  
“Very well. I met Mr. Bramsen at a secluded bench in Hyde Park, as he had instructed, and he shared his problem with me.”   
  
“And what problem was that?”   
  
“As I have already explained, he had lost a ring. Do keep up. Ow!” His exclamation was the result of me applying the nail brush perhaps a bit more vigorously than was necessary.   
  
“Don’t be a brat,” I growled in mock anger. “Right arm.”   
  
“You love that I’m a brat,” he responded, smiling smugly at me as he held his arm out.   
  
“Yes, I do,” I admitted. “Now, please go on about the case. Did Mr. Bramsen describe the ring in sufficient detail?” Sherlock is a great lover of detail.   
  
He nodded vigorously, still smiling. “He was extremely helpful in that respect. It was a fairly simple one—rose gold, with a round red garnet surrounded by six small diamonds in a pattern of braided vines. It was of a somewhat unusually large size, as women’s rings go, and although somewhat valuable, my client was more distressed because it had belonged to his mother and had great sentimental value.”   
  
I finished the fingernails on his right hand and carefully wiped both arms with the sponge. “Oh, dear. That is a shame. How did he come to lose it?” I commented.   
  
And was alarmed when the smile suddenly faded.   
  
“Love?”   
  
He took a deep breath. “John, you must promise that this story goes no further than this room.”   
  
“Very well,” I agreed readily. “The subject is more delicate than I originally thought, I take it.” I worked the suds up in the flannel again and began scrubbing the closest knee. “You must have been kneeling in that manure; it quite soaked through your trousers and drawers and into your skin.”   
  
“Skin. Yes. The skin on my knees is rough. Too much creeping about at crime scenes, I suppose.”   
  
“I suppose.”   
  
“Mrs. Hudson’s hands are rough from work,” he continued. “And yours are calloused from all your writing. Mine—” he held them up out of the bath water— “bear the marks of violin strings and chemicals.”   
  
“Yes.” His voice, strained and low, was beginning to cause me some concern, and I fought to keep my own level.   
  
“But some people have quite smooth skin—even on their hands.”   
  
“Yes?” I replied, growing even more concerned.   
  
“Mr. Bramsen’s hands are quite smooth.”   
  
“Oh?” I was now truly alarmed at the rather odd direction his rambling was taking.   
  
“Kiss me, John,” he requested, and I did so, somewhat hesitantly.   
  
But then he gave me a small smile and explained. “Your moustache tickles,” he reported, “and you missed that spot that you always do when you shave.” He grabbed my hand and held it against his own cheek. “But my face is smooth for days at a time.”   
  
I nodded. He does not have to shave more than every third day or so to maintain his meticulous toilette.   
  
He dropped his eyes to the water covering him. “Mr. Bramsen’s face is very smooth, but sometimes he must shave twice a day to keep it so,” he offered hesitantly.   
  
I remained silent as I began on his other knee, having rubbed the first one nearly raw, waiting.   
  
And then it all came tumbling out of him.   
  
“Mr. Bramsen shaves twice a day, and he puts cream on his face and on his hands, and when his sister, with whom he resides, is away, he dresses in her clothes and puts on a wig and goes out where neither of them is known and he… She is away for a fortnight this time and he went out wearing her riding costume and her ring and while he was out he lost it and he could not think of what else to do but to request that I assist him in finding it before she returns.”   
  
“He had to tell you everything that he had been doing so you could retrace his steps,” I realised.   
  
“He could not bring himself to do so on his own behalf—in either guise. He was quite panicked. I regretted not being able to bring you with me, particularly then, as he seemed quite on the verge of a nervous collapse. Having a doctor there would have been reassuring, for I had no idea what to do for him.”   
  
“I have no doubt that you would have kept a cool head and summoned aid had he required it, my love. It makes it clear, though—If he is so nervous about being found out—it must be a very strong urge that causes him to continue his surreptitious practice.”   
  
Sherlock nodded and then shivered.   
  
“Oh, my poor darling. Is the water growing cold?” I turned on the hot tap.   
  
“It is not the same thing, is it?” he asked over the rushing of the water.   
  
“What isn’t?” I asked, drawing my hand through the water, swirling the hot water into the cooler, which was murky with the soap and dirt I had removed from his pale skin.   
  
“I have dressed in that fashion, more than once.”   
  
“Yes, I know you have,” I agreed.   
  
“But it was always for an investigation.”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“John, I admit that I enjoyed doing that, but only in the way I always enjoy fooling people with any of my disguises.”   
  
“Of course, my love.”   
  
“But otherwise, I have no desire to dress or to act any differently than as I do. I have not wished to present myself as a woman just to do the thing. I have never wished to be a woman. I have never once wished to be… a wife to you.”   
  
I leaned over him and kissed him as I turned off the tap.   
  
“I have never wished for you to be one, Sherlock,” I told him honestly. Yes, I had (and sometimes still do) flirt with the ladies I encounter. My admiration, particularly of their beauty and delicacy and elegant sense of dress, comes across in my published works—but in all honesty, it is the same admiration I feel for a particularly fine painting, or composition, or piece of writing. Yes, I did know the touch of a woman—but it was the rough hand of a common whore I had stumbled across in my once-frequent visits to Whitechapel and to whom I had handed twice the usual number of coins. Yes, I had had a wife, many years ago, and yes, we had—I cannot in honesty say “enjoyed” our marital relations, but we did engage in them.   
  
I do not now and apparently never have—except from a distance—wanted the frippery and frills of a woman in my life. More than anything, that was the downfall of my marriage.   
  
And despite all of that, and despite the delicacy of Sherlock’s beautiful features; his curls and fair complexion and slender hands and moods and tendency to faint—I have never once wished or even considered the possibility of him _being_ a woman—not in appearance nor behaviour nor dress, and especially not in the most obvious (and crucial) feature.   
  
I adore his elegant clothing; the look of his shoulders when he is embraced by shirt and waistcoat and coat. The ripple of taut muscles beneath his fine shirts. The hidden iron strength of his hands and arms. The vibrancy as he strides across a moor and creeps around a room and clambers up a broken staircase still—every time—astounds and thrills me. His deep voice and trim hips—yes.   
  
Yes, the person I love is very much a man, as am I, and he has an organ like mine, and here in my private writing I can admit that even though I have enjoyed— _in the past_ —the feel of my lips pressed against a soft breast, I can now barely recall it.   
  
What I adore beyond anything now is my darling’s lips against mine, and his queer, grey eyes fixed on me as I strip first him and then myself, and then lower myself over him, eagerly.   
  
All of these thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant, and I knew absolutely that no, I never wished for my darling to be anything but the amazing, brilliant, and beautiful man that he is.   
  
I found the cloth again. “As you might recall, I had a wife, and clearly that did not appeal to me,” I assured him.   
  
He looked up at me and the innocence in his eyes makes my heart ache for him—even after all this time, he is still so very unsure of himself. “Are you certain, John?” he murmured.   
  
I took the cloth, and I began to clean the very last of him. “Did you actually _sit_ in the manure?” I asked.   
  
He considered my question quite seriously, nodding. “I’m afraid I did—not intentionally, but I lost my balance and fell back at one point.”   
  
“Do you think your trousers will ever come clean?” I wondered, continuing to move the cloth across his skin.   
  
“I suspect not,” he admitted.   
  
Then something occurred to me. “Why did you think you would find the ring in all that muck?”   
  
“It was the only place where Mr Bramsen had removed his gloves. He said that he had gone to the stables, and he had brought some sugar lumps for the horses. To feed them, he removed his gloves. Of course, it could have simply been flung into some corner upon removing the glove—it was loose on him—but if that had been the case, it would have been found by one of the stable boys. I questioned them all quite closely, and none of them had seen it—or seemed to be hiding anything. It was then that I realised what must have happened.”   
  
“You don’t mean—”   
  
“As I deduced, yes, one of the horses had lipped the ring right off his finger and swallowed it.”   
  
I took a moment to absorb this. “So, you found the ring?”   
  
“Finally, yes,” he sighed. “After a great deal of searching. It was a _large_ stable, John. There were a great _many_ horses.”   
  



End file.
